EAT PRAY LOVE 3.0***

Eat Pray Love is a movie aimed at and marketed towards women. So when I connected with it -- and enjoyed it -- it was somewhat of a surprise but then again, I often like chick flicks. It wasn’t so much the story either, which we’ve seen multiple times before (usually with a man in the lead), as it was the cast that made it work. Julia Roberts does a fine job and it was refreshing that she was such a good match for this part.

Based on the bestselling Oprah-approved memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, the story follows Gilbert (portrayed by Roberts) on her travels over the course of a year as she tries to reconnect with her true self after she splits from her marriage on an impulse one day, leaving her husband (Billy Crudup) in a state of shock and with a broken heart. Along the way she finds comfort with food and new friends in Italy, enlightenment at a temple in India, and searches for love and trust again in Bali.

As already mentioned, it’s the cast that really makes Eat Pray Love connect so well. Besides Roberts’ performance, the two parts that stand out most are Javier Bardem as her love interest, and Richard Jenkins as the man she meets in India, known only as “Richard from Texas”. Bardem delivers a very raw, human character and makes an impression that he is the real deal while Jenkins nearly ripped my heart out with a powerful and sincere scene.

Many people are going to be repelled by Eat Pray Love before they even see it (the same way the book had its detractors before people read it) because they feel what Gilbert did was selfish. Whether you agree with her or not doesn’t really matter because director and co-writer Ryan Murphy (creator of Glee and Nip/Tuck) has made a good movie that deserves a fair trial. I went in expecting a “chick flick” and ended up seeing a very human film.

Also, a lot of people, especially people that are happy and comfortable with traditional life and family will not understand a woman leaving a perfectly nice man that is in love with her to go on a journey and find herself. Many people will say that Liz is selfish and it's all about her. Yes. This movie (and the book) is all about her. It is a real story about a woman searching for something missing in her life. It was refreshing that someone could be honest about being unhappy and wanting a different life. Taking the difficult path, an unknown journey and risking everything is to be admired even if it’s not for some noble purpose.

Clark